BT 2016 Annual Report Download - page 263

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Overview The Strategic Report Governance Financial statements Additional information
O
Ofcom: the independent regulator and competition authority
in the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across
television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications
services.
P
PIA: passive infrastructure access – this occurs when one company
accesses ducts owned by another and installs its own fibre optic or
other cables.
POLOs: payments to other licensed operators – typically refers to
payments by one CP to another CP when terminating voice traffic
on their network to carry the call to the customer receiving the call.
PoPs: points of presence – this refers to a location in a city where
BT has the ability to connect customers to one of its networks.
R
RFT: ‘Right First Time’ – the internal measure of whether we are
keeping our promises to our customers and meeting or exceeding
their expectations.
S
SIP: session initiation protocol – a method for creating, modifying
and terminating sessions with one or more participants. These
include internet telephone calls, multimedia distribution and
multimedia conferences.
SIP Trunk: this replaces the need for traditional analog, T1-based
Public Switched Telephone Network connections with termination
instead provided over a company’s public or private internet
connection through a SIP provider.
U
Undertakings: legally-binding commitments BT made to Ofcom,
designed to bring greater transparency and certainty to the
regulation of the telecommunications industry in the UK. They led
to the formation of Openreach.
V
VDSL: very high speed DSL – a high-speed variant of DSL
technology. It provides a high headline speed by reducing the
length of the access line copper by connecting to fibre at the
cabinet.
VoIP: voice over internet protocol – a method of transporting
speech over the internet.
VPN: virtual private network – a secure way to create an apparent
dedicated network between nodes over a network infrastructure,
which is in reality shared with other services.
W
WAN: wide area network – a computer network that exists over
a relatively large geographical area that connects two or more
smaller networks. This enables computers and users in one location
to communicate with computers and users in other locations.
WBC: wholesale broadband connect – a product supplied by
BT Wholesale which provides high-speed, high-performance
broadband services.
WLR: wholesale line rental – a product supplied by Openreach
which is used by other CPs to offer telephony services using their
own brand, pricing structure and billing, but using BT’s network.